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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

How the EC infected our electoral system

Published: Today 4:18 pm
Modified: Today 4:28 pm

COMMENT
| Article 114 of the Federal Constitution requires the appointment of
an Election Commission (EC) which enjoys public confidence. After all,
the EC is the constitutional body tasked with managing the all-important
electoral system in Malaysia.

However, if the actions of the EC in 2017 are anything to go by, the
EC has inspired zero public confidence and has failed in its duty to
administer elections in Malaysia.

One would think that as a public entity set up and empowered by the
highest law of the nation, the EC would act in the public interest with
the highest standard of integrity, competence, and impartiality.

On the contrary, the EC has taken various actions and decisions in
2017 which made the electoral system worse. This article summarises
eight of such regressive actions.

Bulldozing the redelineation process

The EC started the redelineation process for Sabah and Peninsular
Malaysia in September 2016. Instead of correcting the severe
malapportionment and gerrymandering in the existing electoral
boundaries, the EC took steps to make it worse by creating more
super-sized constituencies.

In March 2017, the EC forcefully proceeded with the second display of
their proposed redelineation, despite the Selangor government obtaining
a stay order against it from the courts, pending the disposal of their
judicial review challenge. For the first time in history, Selangor was
excluded from the second redelineation display.

In December 2017, the Selangor case was unfortunately dismissed. The
EC wasted no time and rushed out the notice of local enquiry within two
days. The local enquiries were held during the festive period when many
objectors were away.

It is clear that the EC is hellbent on bulldozing through the
redelineation before the upcoming general elections. This is highly
improper as the EC has up till September 2018 to complete the exercise.

Various analysis by researchers have shown that the redelineation would swing 15-20 seats in favour of the ruling coalition.

Seven other court cases were also filed in other states in 2017 to challenge the unconstitutional redelineation.

Instead of being accountable for the allegations of malapportionment
and gerrymandering, the EC and Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) skirted
around the issue and relied on weak legal arguments – that the proposed
recommendations are not legally binding and therefore should not be
reviewed by the courts.

Destruction of voter records

In a shocking revelation during the course of the Selangor’s
redelineation legal case, the EC admitted that they have no records of
the 136,272 voters without addresses in Selangor because the documents
have been destroyed.

Similarly, there are 44,190 voters without addresses in Melaka and 56,323 in Perak.

A voter’s address is a crucial record because it is the basis on
which he or she is assigned to voting constituencies. The EC also needs
the address to communicate with voters or to conduct corrections on the
electoral roll.

These again raise age-old questions on the integrity of the electoral
roll. Voters without addresses could very well be phantom voters who
are illegally registered in large numbers in order to sway election
results.

All of these cases have one thing in common: they are done in
marginal constituencies in a deliberate and coordinated manner in an
attempt to sway electoral results.

In the case of Sekinchan for example, Umno’s Sungai Besar division
chief Jamal Yunos openly claimed that he had 'discovered' 7,000 new
voters in the Sekinchan state seat and will 'move the voters using all
methods possible even though it will cost us millions'.

What has the EC done to prevent and resolve the issue? Nothing. It
has allowed it to take place unhindered although they are empowered by
the law to inspect, stop and clean up the electoral roll.

Refusal to provide a soft copy of the draft supplementary electoral roll

In previous years, the quarterly draft supplementary roll was
provided to political parties. This allowed for analysis and detection
of phantom voters and irregularities in new voter registration or
transfers. Objections can then be filed if necessary.

In 2017, the EC arbitrarily decided to stop providing a soft copy of
the supplementary electoral roll. Without it, no meaningful monitoring
can be done.

It is physically impossible to inspect the draft rolls effectively
for phantom voters because they are voluminous and only displayed
physically in different areas.

Is the EC intentionally limiting information in order to hide and
prevent further discoveries of phantom voters? Or is it just plain
incompetent and uncooperative?

The EC did not give any reason for their decision to regress, except
that they have no legal obligation to do so. This is embarrassing to say
the least, coming from a constitutional body who is supposed to act in
the public interest.

Expanding postal voter categories

Postal voting remains a key problem because of its lack of
transparency and vulnerability for manipulation. For many years, civil
society and political parties have demanded for postal voting to be
abolished, but the EC did the total opposite last year.

In October and December 2017, the EC silently gazetted new categories
of postal voters. Among others, the new categories are: civil service
in the Prisons Department, Fire and Rescue Department, Police Volunteer
Reserve, Immigration Department, and National Registration Department.

With such extensive expansion of categories, postal votes might very
well be fraudulently used to tip the scales in many marginal
constituencies.

On the other hand, the EC has denied the demands from Sabah and
Sarawak voters residing in Peninsular Malaysia to vote as advanced
voters without having to travel back.

Covert registration and transferring of military voters

There were also two abnormal incidences involving military voters last year.

Firstly, in the first quarter supplementary electoral roll for 2017,
the EC and Ministry of Defence (Mindef) irregularly added 28,416
military voters and their spouses using Regulation 14 of the Elections
(Registration of Electors) Regulations.

Regulation 14 is a provision allowing voters who have applied to be
registered to submit a correction claim to the EC if their names have
been omitted from the supplementary electoral roll.

It is highly unlikely that the 28,416 military voters fall under this category.

Secondly, in the third quarter supplementary electoral roll for 2017,
the EC allowed the transfer of 3,724 or army voters using three army
camps that are still under construction and do not exist.

This is a clear violation of the Federal Constitution, which requires
voters to be registered in constituencies which they are residing in.

These camps are 'coincidentally' located in three marginal
constituencies (Segamat, Bera, and Bagan Datok) currently held by
cabinet ministers – S Subramaniam, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, and Zahid
Hamidi.

Voter registration

By the EC’s own admission, there were 4.2 million unregistered voters
at the start of 2017, constituting more than 20 percent of the total
eligible voters in Malaysia.

The EC has done nothing to make it more convenient for voters to
register. Instead, things are made worse by withdrawing the appointment
of Assistant Registrar Officers (ARO) from political parties.

Various NGOs and political parties have had to shoulder the
ineffectiveness of the EC by organising their own voter registration
campaigns. And yet, the EC made things more difficult by limiting access
to voter registration forms to their own AROs.

The EC should save everyone the trouble by instituting automatic
voter registration. This can easily be done by synchronising the
electoral roll with the National Registration Department’s database,
which the EC is already doing with regards to removing deceased voters
and those who are no longer citizens from the electoral roll.

Zero engagement with stakeholders

Perhaps, the biggest failure and arrogance of the EC is their reluctance to engage meaningfully with any stakeholders.

Political parties and NGOs have submitted countless letters,
memorandums, and even made numerous visits to the EC office, but the EC
does not even have the courtesy to reply.

It seems that the only way for stakeholders to get a response from
the EC is through their occasional media statements, or to sue them in
court.

In September 2017, Kofi Annan Foundation and Suhakam organised a regional conference on democracy and elections.

While this high-level conference was attended by esteemed guests such
as the former president of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the EC
chose to be an embarrassment by not attending the conference or even
sending a representative.

The EC, as a constitutional body, must have some sense of public duty
and accountability. The minimum duty is to provide clarification and
adequate information with regards to pertinent electoral issues, and yet
they display arrogance by ignoring all stakeholders.

Electoral fraud is, therefore, happening even before elections.

So it is not surprising that Malaysia scored a 'very low' ranking of
144 out of 161 countries in the Electoral Integrity Project, a reputable
independent academic study on electoral integrity worldwide based at
the Harvard University and the University of Sydney.

What we seen in 2017 is the worsening of our electoral system, using
old and new techniques alike. Electoral fraud and manipulation are
already happening well before elections are held, and the EC is at the
center of it all.

Despite the odds, the integrity of our electoral system is not
something that Malaysians should give up on, especially when it has been
a decade long struggle since the first Bersih rallypolling and counting
agents in 2007.

What then can Malaysians do to protect and defend the integrity of our electoral system?

Firstly, Malaysians can reduce the effect of electoral fraud and
manipulation by ensuring a high voter turnout. Malaysians must stand up
against electoral fraud by voting and ensuring that their family members
and friends do the same.

Secondly, Malaysians can volunteer as polling and counting agents
(Pacas) in their constituencies. Adequate Pacas are needed at all
polling stations to prevent outright fraud during polling day.

Beyond that, Malaysians should also volunteer with Pemantau, an election observation campaign launched by Bersih 2.0.

Many electoral fraud and offences such as bribery and political
violence happen before polling day. Pemantau (election observers) are
therefore also needed to ensure a clean and fair environment during the
campaigning period. Registration as a Pemantau can be done here.

At the end of the day, if we cannot rely on the EC to run elections
in a clean and fair manner, citizens must take it upon themselves to
defend the integrity of our elections and democracy.
The writer is outreach officer, Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih 2.0).
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.Read more at https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/409710#JfFAzJQgEoImSu9Q.99

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